NO B.S. FRIDAY: Today, I turn my back on Trump

Just felt like I needed to make that clear. I was talking to someone the other day who was bemoaning the slow moving train-wreck of the Trump campaign.

I said, “I know right? It’s amazing. Fantastic stuff.”

And she said, “What? How could you even think of voting for him?”

And I was like, “Hey? What are we talking about? Neither of us are Americans. Neither of us are voting. Why are we taking sides in someone else’s fight?”

I was just talking from a spectator’s perspective.”

But it seems, when it comes to Trump, there are no spectator seats. You are either with us or against us.

And I know I’ve talked in pretty glowing, half-masted terms about Trump in this blog. But for me that was never about what kind of president he would be, or what it would mean for the world.

It was about what he was doing to the game and what he was doing to the way we perceive reality. In my mind, they’re totally different things.

So today, for the record, I disavow President Trump. Let me break it down so we’re absolutely clear:

** Why I loved the Trump Show:

The Outsider

There’s a few things I’ve loved about the Trump run. To start, he’s an outsider giving the establishment a shake – and doing it like a boss. I loved Sanders for the same reason. Both Trump and Sanders shone a light on the non-democratic way Presidential candidates are selected, and the entitlement mentality the two parties have.

Which is exactly what we’ve got here by the way. ‘Don’t risk your vote with a person who actually represents your interests. Your votes belong to us.’

I feel like the cracks are beginning to show in this structure. It’s past its use-by date. Trump is just the accelerant. And for me, the sooner our phony show of democracy is destroyed the better.

The Persuader

Trump is giving us a master-lesson in persuasion and negotiation. (There’s a hat-tip again here to Dilbert creator Scott Adams, who’s analysis of the Trump game is fascinating.)

The short of it is that we have this delusion that we are rational beings. We tell ourselves a story that we make rational decisions between competing breakfast cerals, soft-drinks, political candidates, and ideologies.

It’s just a story. We are messy animals driven by emotion. We buy the soft-drink that makes us feel most optimistic about life. We vote for the candidate with the nicest hair.

The Trump Show has taken a battering ram to that delusion. Trump has shown us again and again that he doesn’t care too much about the facts. (Show me a politician that does.) But he works the emotional level like a boss.

As someone who works in deal-making and marketing, I know the value of these skills. And Trump’s skills are off the hook.

It makes me blush sometimes.

But not everyone gets what these skills about, which is why so many people just can’t understand why Trump is so popular.

But I get excited because I want you to see these skills in action – the magician’s hand moving behind the mirror. Because I want you to have these skills too.

** Why Trump would suck at President

But none of this means that I think Trump would be a good President. (Not that I’m saying Clinton would be any better either. That’s a whole other train wreck. I might share a few thoughts on that next week… stay tuned.) But President Trump is not what the world needs.

The system we have – an emotion-driven mash of massive egos and vested interests and money – does not do a good job of elevating talent to the top.

In fact, it seems to do exactly the opposite.

The best President for the US is currently working at a soup kitchen in Detroit. The best Prime Minister for Australia is currently working as a nurse in Western Sydney.

But these people, precisely because they are sensitive and caring, can’t handle the cut and thrust of politics.

We have a political system that rewards self-serving bastardry, and then we’re surprised at the results.

Trump is just another self-serving bastard.

Don’t vote for him.

** … But I don’t fear Trump.

I know there’s a lot of fear around Trump. I see that. I get that.

But I don’t think you should be too worried. When you don’t see the calculated, meticulous persuasion skills that Trump embodies, you see an angry, volatile tomato-coloured baboon.

And with that characterisation locked into your mind, you imagine that the only way he could be a serious Presidential contender, is if he was leading an army of similar tomato-coloured baboons.
A massive army of tomato-coloured baboons, with nuclear weapons, is a scary prospect.

But none of that is real. When you see what game Trump is playing, when you see how carefully thought out and meticulous it is (remember he took down the Bush dynasty like it was nothing), it becomes hard to see things going too rogue.

There’ll probably be shitty policies in the mix, sure, but its not going to be baboon Armageddon.

** So don’t vote for Trump

So don’t vote for him. Study him, master his skills, but don’t vote for him. (I know we’re not American’s but I wasn’t the one who said we couldn’t be spectators.)

As Plato said, the only people fit to lead are the ones who don’t want the job.

And just for the record, don’t confuse my fascination with his game for being all excited for President Trump.

Comments

The reality is there are only 2 choices so there is no gain expressing double sided opinions other than commenting on the positives of either one so that voters can at least be objective in their decisions with this parlous pair

Totally agree, if someone wants to be a cop, it’s often so they can bully people,
if they want to be a scout leader, they should be kept away from young boys,

Trump’s fence building plan is so retarded I’m still waiting to see why he says it,

I’m not sure if americans could tempt Duterte with more money,
but really, the best solution is direct internet voting with a requirement that you pass a questionnaire with revolving q compiled by both sides of any issue, that you could only pass if you understand the issue, and why should you have an opinion if you don’t know the facts,

Like should we have nuclear power? the coal burners in latrobe valley emit 2 tons of uranium into the air per year, that’s in the coal they burn, so the q would include ‘ how much uranium released from burning coal in latrobe, a) none, b)2 g …
If you fail the q, you don’t know which of the 20 q you got wrong, pass mark wouldn’t be 100%, but this would be a core q, that you wouldn’t be allowed to get wrong before voting,. the other side would also have a core q that you would have had to read a page or 2 of their material to answer correctly,
One of the big advantages other than not seeing smug f wits make bad decisions and say they’re doing a good job, is that you could change your mind on things, free heroin to all? bad idea? didn’t work as promised, ok reverse it.

Yeah, that sounds like a better idea than building a wall. Even though the Chinese built one, using manual labour, a few thousand years ago to keep out unwanted invaders, that must have been a dumb idea, even then.

Anyway, why build a big, ugly old fence when a couple of automatic laser guns can protect miles of border without wasting a single post or rail?

Oh, which isotopes of uranium? What are the relevant half-lives? And where does it mostly end up?

So, who decides on the questions? And who decides what are the correct answers? A couple of pitfalls there, I suspect. Nothing is black and white anymore, thankfully.

I can’t say off the top of my head what the ratio of fissile U235 to non fissile U238, but those are the sort of things that can be looked up and agreed upon, if the proposed q and answers were subjective, then they’d be thrown out as not proven.

The earth is full of Uranium, there’s a fair bit decaying in your granite bench top, releasing Radon into your house, you can google it, I’m not your mum.

On a forum like this, people from each side could agree on what the most pertinent q are.

The ‘why not’ for laser guns, who’s going to pay for some kid that blunders into them,
and you’d just put a mirror in the way as you walked passed, if not tunnel under, if not shoot the laser, if not cut the power supply, if not fly over, if not swim under, if not just drive straight thru in a vehicle with a thin slab of wet concrete on the side’

Lasers take a fair bit of power to run, need to be fairly good not to diverge, and then would cut up airplanes due to curve of earth,

Laser guns were just an example… Knowing the Americans, they “would never do!” Maybe laser guided weapons, but alone definitely not a high enough kill potential for such an important job. I’m sure there are oodles of weapons they could dedicate to border protection, including automatic grenade launchers, acoustic and optical disablement weapons, microwave weapons, drones, etc etc… But you are right, there would have to be a barbed wire fence as a minimum, to keep those hordes of unsupervised lost American kids from blundering into the no man’s land from the American side. Or the Mexican side, for that matter.

Too bad, no granite benches in my house. But I guess buildings with concrete in them are going to have a similar problem.

But you missed my point about the questions you propose. You have to remember that opponents tend deliberately not to agree. Just getting the questions and answers sorted out would delay every election for many years. Maybe you’ve never been into a court room (or parliament!) and watched for a few hours the games enemies will play? You oughtta try it some time. It’s most enlightening. It really highlights one of the biggest failings of “Democracy”. Maybe that should be Demoncracy?

you missed a key point, both sides get to put up 10 q each, without asking the other side,
they get to deliberately choose the q that will embarrass the other side, as long as there is a definitive answer.

Trying to bring about change to the ludicrous American Political System not a good enough something? How much (of his own money) has he spent on this project so far? Apparently, he’s not really all that rich anyway, which earns him that much more admiration, IMV. He’s got guts, he’s got ‘nads, and doesn’t seem to be afraid of media ridicule etc.

Not on your Nellie! It didn’t happen under Dub-Ya i.e. Dumba, and The Don isn’t more likely to push the Big Red Button, IMHO. Dub-ya was about as scary an American President as I have noticed in my lifetime. But, who really knows what really goes, behind the scenes? A President is always reined in by all the political machinery beneath him, he / she being little more than a figure head. And of course, what we see is only what the Media Machine wants us to see.

The difference between Dub-ya and Don is that Don has a mind of his own, and that could be dangerous. Or it could be great! As with everything involving power in any form, from matches to the Big Bang, from light bulbs to Laser Weapons…

As for Game Changer, absolutely – or not. They assassinated Kennedy when they didn’t like his good ideas… They dropped the WTC Towers on their own people when they wanted to start some more wars over resources… (Funny how Building 7 “just happened” to fall down at the same time, in sympathy.) The future is scary, Don probably a good foil.

Much sooner him than “Hills”, who IS a scary prospect, and entirely lacks the charisma of her husband to boot. Can’t see what Bill sees in her, actually. But then, as they say, the rich never divorce, and there are plenty of Monicas out there.

But I believe there is ample evidence out there which shows that the WTC Towers were deliberately brought down by professional demolition specialists, that such setup work took place in the weeks prior thereto, that the buildings’ design would not have allowed even a plane (fuselage) full of burning jet fuel to bring them down, and that even IF a suitable fire (much hotter than non-forced, open-air combustion of randomly dispersed A1 Jet Fuel [Kerosene] over several floors) had been used, the failure of the structures would certainly not have been almost perfectly vertical. The tops of the buildings would have slowly toppled over, causing massive “collateral damage” to the surrounding area. But if you watch the demolition movies, you will see that both buildings suddenly and without warning start to drop in near perfect vertical alignment. There is a slight wavering of the top of one building, but that’s about it. The only way that could have happened would be by the coordinated detonation of suitably placed explosive charges. Otherwise, the pillars on one side (whichever was hottest) would have started to subside and crumple first, and the failure would have been by way of a slow and painful tilting over, followed by the snapping of the columns on the opposite side, a bit like what happened to the Titanic when it went nose-down. The spine of the ship snapped. It broke in two, and went down in two pieces. It is highly unlikely that enough momentum could have been generated in this way to get the lower stories to collapse one after the other, concertina-style, as happened. However, evaporate all the columns on one level at the same instant, and you would get exactly what happened. The entire mass of the top section of the building would drop at 1G, one storey onto the floor below, which would have no choice but to collapse… Even then, it was remarkable that there was so little deviation from the vertical alignment.

And it doesn’t matter which ‘they’. Obviously, a different “they” assassinated Kennedy. Just as in any large country, there are numerous different powerful and dangerous groups at work, each with different agendas and priorities. In the WTC case, it was some part of the military-industrial complex. Some people “ain’t got no conscience.”

Enjoy!
Especially the part about the rivers of orange-coloured molten metal seen (and photgraphed) pouring out of the building(s?) for 7 minutes prior to collapse, and the detection of thermite particles in the dust… Oh, and the squibs, also shown in photographic images.

Now you’re really clutching at straws. That’s a 2008 story, PREDICTING what the “Official” Government Coverup (NIST) Story is going to say – regarding Building 7, alone. And, it turns out, they couldn’t really explain it. Not properly. It was mainly conjecture, and their work is fairly criticised in the europhysicsnews article.

Further, quoting your BBC item:

“However, a group of architects, engineers and scientists say the
official explanation that fires caused the collapse is impossible.
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth argue there must have been a
controlled demolition.”

The europhysicsnews story is just “a little bit” better informed than the BBC Media Press Release story you refer. And it was published this year (2016), after a further 8 years of proper analysis, and includes an overview of some of the relevant strength calculations, computer modelling images, “mysterious, unexplained” photographs and so on.

Turns out, my own summary was incorrect. Without the necessary structural weakening indicated by the streams of molten metal flowing from the buildings, the collapse would not have been sustained, even if one upper floor had been completely vaporised. The strength of the original building below would have been sufficient to arrest the fall of the upper storeys. Amazing, isn’t it? Ya gotta remember, the lower floors of the building were NOT being weakened by a couple of wingfuls of burning jet fuel. They were weakened by Thermite-type melting. There seems little doubt about that… Oh, I suppose the terrorists tossed a couple of bundles of Thermite out the window before the imaginary passenger planes impacted the towers…

Even more interesting, according to the europhysicsnews article, which I guess you haven’t read yet, none of the videos of the Twin Tower collapses contain any images of the upper storeys of either tower, from 4 seconds after the start of each collapse. It appears that the upper stories were exploded as they fell. There is, I realise, from my earlier post, a very good reason why this was necessary. With the top of each tower completely disconnected from its support below, there is absolutely no way to guarantee how they would fall. Very likely, they would tip over and fall as one huge hunk of skyscraper, no doubt onto other buildings. So, they had to be disintegrated over “Ground Zero” before they got the chance to start going AWOL. I mean, we want a nice, “clean” terrorist attack job, right? Symbolic rather than realistic.

Now I understand why they call it Ground Zero. Originally, the point immediately below a mid-air nuclear explosion. I did hear rumours of radioactivity in the rubble, but wouldn’t want to spread unsubstantiated rumours…

Yes, you do need to look at both sides. And, I have to say, there’s nothing like a believer of one side who switches sides after realising that their first belief is false. It’s like a reformed smoker. It’s happened to me a few times now. The first time was the strangest, trust me; I’m more used to it now.

The PopMechs story is so 2008, also part of the same PR exercise as the BBC story. Both trailers, part of a desperate attempt to sway a wavering public opinion. And they are both only about WTC Building 7. I wasn’t originally talking about WTC7, only mentioned it as an aside, but it’s a great red herring to distract this thread away from the real issues with the collapses of WTC1 and WTC2. My Bad!

Still don’t see why anyone should take a couple of second-rate newspaper stories (the 6 seconds title says it all!) by some general newshacks more seriously than a properly authored, referenced and vetted report by qualified professors and engineers in the industry. Hell, anyone could have written those newspaper stories. Why don’t they include the same photos as the epn report, and offer plausible explanations for them!?

Err, that runny orange stuff, yeah, that’s half cooked egg yolk. Those peculiar puffs of debris coming out of the building many stories below the collapse front, that must be Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, having a farting contest…

Yes, I was initially concerned that skyscrapers could apparently be so easily brought down by a mere fire, but looking at the facts surrounding the whole sorry WTC saga, I no longer have those doubts. As the europhysicsnews report says, it’s kinda odd that the only three skyscrapers to supposedly ever collapse due to fire, all happened on the same day, all within a few hundred metres of each other. And two, supposedly due to terrorism. (Actually, all three, due to terrorism. Only the precise identity of the perpetrators is in question.) The fall of WTC7 is also discussed in the epn report.

Don’t forget, this was the second supposed terrorist attack on the WTC, so it was a good idea to make it look like a better “second attempt.” The “better” part is certainly true!

Easy to imagine an uneducated public would fall for it. Problem is, not everyone is uneducated. As the saying goes, “You can fool all of the people some of the time…” This ain’t one of those times. Maybe it’s the 21st Century. You know, when bridges or buildings fall down due to fires, floods or earthquakes, engineers always get blamed. So, they get a bit cautious, and overdesign things like really, really tall buildings. They even make allowances for sloppy, even shoddy construction workmanship. So, if anyone has a proper opinion about when it will, or won’t fall down, it could really only be a high-rise building structural design engineer, or his professor.

Let me try you on another popularly believed event: What do you believe brought down the Concorde in Paris a few years ago?

the reason tower 7 collapsed without the hundreds of tons of jet fuel that the main towers had, and other buildings haven’t, is that the fires weren’t being fought but left to burn, I learned in engineering that steel is weakened quite quickly by fire.

I wasn’t there so I didn’t see the puffs of smoke caused by detonations, where did you get that gem?

you must have liked the bit about the types of people who believe in conspiracy theories?

And you’re willing now to admit it? OMGA! But you didn’t PASS, that’s obvious.

Not sure what you mean by “the bit about the types of people who believe in conspiracy theories” but don’t you realise???

YOU, yes, you, Simon, ARE one of those types. So don’t be too critical of yourself.

Well, yes, be more critical – of how and what you think. It’s called Critical Thinking.

You picked the wrong “conspiracy theory” here.

Let me spell it out.

noun: conspiracy

a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
“a conspiracy to destroy the government”

the action of plotting or conspiring.

There are two sides. TWO Conspiracy Theories. Doesn’t matter which one you believe; either way, you are a Conspiracy Theory Believer.

Side A theorises that the Twin Towers were brought down as part of a _conspiracy_ by an EXTERNAL group (Osama bin Laden, Al Queda, or some other bunch of Middle Eastern Terrorists), involving the crashing of hijacked commuter jet planes into them. That’s Conspiracy Theory A.

Side B theorises that the Twin Towers were brought down as part of a _conspiracy_ by an INTERNAL group (people within government, the military, big business…) involving the controlled demolition of the towers, but disguised as another conspiracy I call Conspiracy Theory A.

Since you have received an education in engineering, you probably know about the formation of theories and hypotheses, and how to go about validating a hypothesis.

The idea is to formulate the hypothesis, then go about trying to prove or disprove it. Performing experiments designed to prove the same thing by a different method is a common and effective approach.

Since no one is going to build another tower for the purpose of testing the plane crash-jet fuel-fire hypothesis, we have no option but to use the different method approach.

We have to piece together all the evidence, and try to prove whether or not they fit – to either theory.

Not going into all that now, but there are lots… of facts and pieces of evidence that just DO NOT fit Conspiracy Theory A.

Don’t have time to answer all your points, but will say, regarding this:

“I wasn’t there so I didn’t see the puffs of smoke caused by detonations, where did you get that gem?”

That is your “gem” not mine. Here’s what I said:

“Those peculiar puffs of debris coming out of the building many stories below the collapse front…”

Never said “smoke”, never said “caused by detonations”. Looks like I spelled storeys incorrectly though.

I wasn’t there either. Doesn’t matter. If you’re losing the argument, it helps to misquote your opponent, then try to argue against that…

Anyway, since this is all about proof, thanks for proving that you didn’t even “look at the pictures” in the europhysicsnews report. If you had, you would know one of my sources.

I won’t bother too much with “the hundreds of tons of jet fuel” you allege, but anyone can look up Wikipedia and find out that even the largest Boeing 767 model only holds a maximum of about 75 tonnes of fuel at take off. These (by CT “A”) were commuter planes. B737s and A320s only carry about 20-25 tonnes of fuel, max.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who purport themselves to be educated are dumber than a door knob. You are yet another fool sucked in by main stream media who not only support Hillary through donations, but hide her lying and scandals, amazing what can be hidden from an apathetic public. Well done John may be time to change your name again!

But alas, Disturbed doesn’t seem to be one of them, as he seems not to understand the differences Jon points out between Great Showman (Don) and a (potentially) Great President (like JFK was, perhaps?)

What never ceases to amaze me how people continue to comment on articles after reading only the headline. Jon refers to Clinton as whole other train-wreck… Hardly a proclamation of support. And time for Jon to change his name again? Good call, Disturbed. Your mother give you that name?

jonno you are missing a few things. trump has two things going for him..he bucks the establishment (international jewry) and he wants to extend the hand of friendship to russia. the last two presidents who tried that were assassinated :mckinlay(a1900) and kennedy (1963) i don’t know how brave baboons are but i can say that trump for all of his ‘weaknesses’ is, in my book, a very brave man.. hillary clinton, the most hated woman in america for many, many reasons.and its going public in a big way in u.s.a. anyway it doesn’t matter much because the president is all worked out years ago by the elites. the elections in america are a sham. clinton, if she is able to survive her personal health issues, and there are many, will be instated by a good majority. the counting machine is set to go. yes the votes will be counted ‘electronically’. no chance of skulduggery there 🙂 (b.s.) now as to military hardware. america has 8,500 nuclear warheads. russia has 8,500 also. israel has over 5000. iran is not allowed to have any nor is north korea because they are bad people. china has a hidden amount and uk has brexit. i don’t know if russia has any military bases in or around america, but gee whiz! lol the americanos have many, many bases around the border of russia and hundreds of thousand of un/us troops plus many laboratories in the khazakstan border areas..i cannot imagine why..maybe they are gonna start a biological war with russia. and as you know..because its general knowledge you know..russia wants war!!. yes its like you jonno standing around doing nothing and a few hoods come over and start threatening you.and saying that you wanna fight them. what do you do? be like jesus and turn the other cheek?

trump is not what he appears. (nobody is) but …he is standing up to the establishment or maybe his appearing to do that. war is nasty stuff. we in australia have never seen or experienced war. nor have the ‘homebound’ americans. the u.s. warmongers bomb countries all over the world in the name of democracy, but their homeland has never experienced overhead bombing. the american people have been led by the nose for over a century..its not their fault.

thats a damned fine article you wrote today. i am sure you will get many comments.
cheers

People are afraid that a President Trump would start wars, even nuclear wars. But compared to Hilary, probably much less so. Hilary said (in this campaign) that she would take the advice of the generals. The Iraq invasion was endorsed by the generals to President George W. Bush when they should have been advising him to not invade. In 1962, the world came perilously close to nuclear war with Russia. Only the strength of character of JFK and his brother Robert denied the advice of the generals that a limited nuclear war on Cuba would deliver quick victory to the US. So much for the wisdom of generals. Hilary would take the generals’ advice and possibly nuclear bomb Iran to stop their nuclear program. A President Trump would be very unlikely to do so. A valid criticism of Trump is that he wont take advice. That’s starting to look like a very, very good thing !

Successful adulting requires the discipline to ignore emotions when making big decisions. Otherwise you end up, like I was, with shiny toys and negative net assets. I find it (trigger warning: hypocrite) painful ascribing intelligence to people who support politicians because those politicians patently use techniques recommended by the most effective political communicators of last century – Goebbels, Churchill and Hitler – as well as various Greeks and Romans. When politicians use repetitive short slogans(“Veni, vidi, vici”), tricolons with rhythm (“We will fight them on the beaches…”), or argumentum ad hominem (“Crooked Hillary” – except its true), do you notice the rhetorical technique or the content? Is a preference for facts over feelings now a left wing thing?

Who the Hell defines “successful adulting”, anyway? There are plenty more ways to fail as an adult than to drive a flashy car that you don’t own. You could even go out and shoot up a bunch of people because they taunted you… On that basis, I believe America has failed at “adulting” for more than 250 years of its existence. So, as we outside Amwarica all know, the Americans are not so bright. No need to ascribe intelligence to where its not!

yes simon..thats official. i read a true account of world holders of nuclear warheads. pres. putin has just now ordered his navy to completely destroy all un/usa ships in the black sea area. and there are many usa ships there doing ‘drills’.. he is just awaiting the first sign of beligerence from u.s.a..hillary is all for it, war that is, as she is in destroying her own people. she told a very reliable source recently that her democrat supporters were mostly idiots. and what of the 800 fema camps in u.s.a.? each one has a crematorium that can ‘handle’ 20,000 people every day. i don’t know why they need that sort of thing, but it doesn’t sound good.. god bless america. he had better hurry up though,. god that is..